“1. EXT APARTMENTS – STREET. Close up: one by one, drops of red liquid fall. As the shot widens we see someone’s hand is bleeding; it’s a young man, standing on the pavement in front of an open door. This is SONNY. He’s waiting, and watching something further up the street, off screen (Background noise starts up at variance with the images. Laughter, the clink of crockery and glasses, someone asks for change.) Sonny’s POV – a man approaches, strolling up in the middle of the street, hands pressed to his ears, ignoring the lines of traffic which flow past him on either side. The sound of flicking pages, then a girl’s voice, reading… MARY V/A /…it’s like one of those dreams, you’re walking down a familiar road, then you turn a corner and suddenly a new landscape unrolls itself in front of you, utterly strange, shining seas or sloping gardens; places you think your mind could never invent, space stretching out before you when you usually create nothing for yourself but mazes, dead ends, closed doors. Lucky I’m here to suggest otherwise…/ High above, a giant billboard beams its vague message into the afternoon: an abstract landscape with curves of orange against a distant grey, like the aerials discovered undulations of a desert or two recumbent bodies wound together in sleep. 2. APARTMENTS – UPSTAIRS. Sonny lugs his rucksack down the corridor after Alwyn, following the carpet with rising nausea as it swirls haphazardly through a misbegotten rainbow before expiring in a patch of hard orange at the door of his new apartment… 3. PEPPERMINT STORE CAFÉ. Same time. MARY turns up the sound on the golfing round one more time, and points to the corner table. POSTERGIRL. / You sure he’s not an agent honey. RON/ No baby, He’s an architect, remember? Let’s go. It’s MR CURTIN. He’s eating noodles with his fingers. Slippery. 4. FIBEROPTICA, DREXLER stares jealously at the poster, playing back his last recording; street sounds, traffic, voices, sirens, rain. V/A / Absalom. Now there was a performer, sure, in his day. DREXLER’S APARTMENT. The walls are covered in Absalom cuttings; photos, reviews, his life story, death story… CHICK / …So Drexler was just staring at some cable channel – was about a month ago, and suddenly Absalom spoke to him direct. It’s like, you know how a cloud of files or bees in a cartoon can suddenly shape themselves into a word or an arrow or somethin’? That’s what happened for Drexler. Suddenly all these little details around him, images on billboards, snitches of strangers’ conversation, a changing traffic sign, number of letters in someone’s name, enamelled sun signs on Angelica’s nailstyle, all signed to him…the whole world resolved itself into an arrow beckoning him in one particular direction… 6. PEPPERMINT STORE – EVENING. Mary’s knuckles are white round the wine glass. MARY / Did you get that rhyme when you were a Kid (SINGS) when at night I go to sleep, fourteen angels, fourteen angels watch do keep… Across the room, Mr Curtin stared at the pinball machine, unsure of how to recommence play. V/A FRUDAK / She was a gift then, in those days…a song…oh, an invitation to the likes of me… 7. FIBEROPTICA. It’s late. Sonny makes his apology. Look. I’m only a tourist. The barman hands him a drink anyway. / Cheers (beat) / Seems pretty quiet today / Well…they say on the radio, it’s a holiday. / What’ll it be? / What’ll it be Steve / You Steve? / Yeah. Steve Frudak. Hi. / Frudak? / Yeah / Steve Frudak? / Yeah? / Not the Frudak who..? / He was my dad. / Oh. Sorry, man. The two guys watch some girls playing pool. SONNY / The Frudak who what, man? 8. BAR – LATER./ Cara mia… / Get lost Angelica / So you’re still around I thought you 69 po-leece claim was one more victim… she sniggers in Sonny’s ear, tips wine on the carpet. 9. DREXLER’S APARTMENT, CHICK / To tell the truth I half envied Drexler at the start. No-one else I know believes in anything. But now, well he thinks he believes in the apotheosis of this muso, this performer, but actually what he believes in is what I tell him. What he believes in is me. And when I disappear, which is gonna happen more than soon, what’s the world gonna be for him then? Juts a swarm of flies buzzing like crazy, pushing into his ears, clogging up his eyes. 10. ALWYN’S. Same time. An empty phial on Alwyn’s bedside table, disturbed by the opening and closing of the door, rolls gently to and fro before toppling to the floor. 11. PEPPERMINT STORE. An uncomfortable silence continues. / So. Would you like to? / No. / Would you friend? / Possibly. Probably. Yes.”